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Thursday, February 26, 2009

Tiffin : Philadelphia

Throughout my first year at school, I was told by Indian classmates that Tiffin was the authentic Indian restaurant to try. It's a touch embarrassing to say that it's taken me a good 1 1/2 years to try this place out. And now my Indian classmates are recommending a different place now (I'll post about that next).

Oh well. At least I got a chance to try this out.

I was rather surprised by Tiffin's website, tiffin.com. My first thought was "Am I at the right website? What are these login boxes doing on a restaurant website?"

It indeed was. Apparently they get sufficient repeat and corporate customers that this online ordering system works for them.

They also have a few very affordable weekday-only meal deals that change everyday, but which prices stay constant: $7.50 for vegetarian, $8.50 for non-vegetarian. This is fantastic for my student budget, but the big downer and a flabbergasting one at that was finding out that the expected delivery time was in 1 1/2 hours.

Oof, you can imagine my gf and I listen to our stomachs growl, pondering whether it was worth the wait.

I suppose it probably makes a lot of sense for the corporate crowd who can routinely make these orders ahead of time. And thinking about it, their slightly polished delivery presentation matches the corporate crowd too, with fancy sticker labels describing the dishes:

On the other hand, to my bemusement, their soda bottles looked like they had been buried in the dirt. And certainly, the "Thums Up" soda label made me smile.

As for the food, we ended up getting a lamb saag and an ajwaini tikka (Chicken). And while it was good, it was nothing particularly mind-blowing. In fact, I kept on thinking that there was an almost slightly metallic taste and soulless quality to the dishes that left me slightly underwhelmed and particularly reminded me of the truly contenting dining experiences at some Indian places in the Boston and Hartford areas.

I'll perhaps give Tiffin another shot. But there's another Indian place that's closer, as highly praised as Tiffin was, and is now competing for my attention. (I'll post next about this other place.) We'll see if it's another 1 1/2 years before trying Tiffin again.